The Handbag Studio

In Los Angeles in late October of 1980, I was feeling the strange, malign electricity the Santa Ana winds bring to the city. The heat and challenge of the wind swept along Wilshire Boulevard as I went out to shop for a modestly priced briefcase in Beverly Hills. Passing exorbitant Rodeo Drive on my left, one block from the hotel, I saw, stretching away south, a street that seemed to have normal shops, and family cars bearing the normal scuffs of suburban use. Malls had not yet subsumed the business of such centres as this, and people seemed to be busily parking and seeking out the usual things.